


Team Free Androids

by Tennyo



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Supernatural
Genre: Canon Timeline, Crossover, Domestic, M/M, future timeline, peaceful game ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 10:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16061417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tennyo/pseuds/Tennyo
Summary: Years after Dean and Castiel have retired, they find themselves helping Sam smuggle deviant androids across the border.





	Team Free Androids

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be part one of something else, but considering my other languishing projects, I'm just glad to find a stopping point for this as-is.
> 
> Things not mentioned here:  
> Cas has obviously become human (again) at some point, and is in a relationship with Dean.  
> While they're all retired from hunting, Sam still tends to get involved with projects.

September 2038

Lawrence, Kansas

Dean leans back in his recliner and lowers the datapad he’d been reading. Taking off his glasses, he massages the bridge of his nose. All around the country, things have been weird and getting weirder. At least it isn’t _their_ kind of weird. Nope, it’s not ghosts, or monsters, or even the apocalypse. It’s androids. For months, they’ve seen an increase in violence from the machines breaking their programming. Movement from the right distracts him, and a young woman comes into view.

“Hey, Emma,” he says, sitting up and putting the datapad aside.

Emma, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, says, “Yes. I’ll go get Cas, if you’ll help finish setting the table.”

Dean grumbles as he leans forward, hands digging into the armrests of his recliner. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were getting lazy, making me help you finish with that.” Grunting, he pushes himself to standing. Damn knees ain’t what they used to be.

“It’s either that, or risk having everything get cold before I manage to get him to the table.”

With a lazy half smile, Dean says, “Point taken. Go drag Grumpy on down.”

Nodding, Emma turns and disappears down the hallway. With a sigh, Dean lumbers to the dining room, and sees where everything’s already there, things just need to be set in their places. Once the places are set, Dean helps himself to a cup of coffee, extra strong. Just the way Cas likes it.

Halfway through his first cup and having snagged a strip of bacon, Dean watches Cas trundle in, his sweats loose and t-shirt wrinkled. He frowns and squints at the table as he carefully lowers himself into the chair next to Dean.

“Morning, Sunshine. Coffee?”

Scowling, Cas holds out his mug to Dean, who fills it from the carafe sitting on a warmer within reach of both of them. Dean chuckles as he places it in Cas’ eager hand, watching as he barely bothers to check the temperature before slurping down his first mouthful. Knowing it will take at least a full mug before Cas becomes verbal, Dean serves himself some eggs and more bacon. Halfway through his coffee, Cas grabs some toast and the grape jelly.

Emma’s good at making just enough for the both of them, and comes back when it’s time to clear the table. Cas has just finished his second cup, and he sits back with a huff. “Good morning, Dean, Emma.” She gives him an indulgent smile before disappearing into the kitchen with the dishes.

“So,” Dean says, turning in his seat to face Cas. “The news is interesting this morning.”

“Our kind of interesting? Or…”

“More androids going off the rails.”

“Have you contacted Sam yet?”

“Nah, I was gonna wait until after breakfast.”

Dean gets up first, and places a kiss on Cas’ crown, where the hair has gotten pretty thin. They’ve both gotten lucky with their hair, mostly just going silver and receding at the temples with some thinning. Better than Sam at least. Poor guy’s hair has receded so far back, you’d think he was the older brother. But then he hadn’t been resurrected from the dead as many times as Dean had. Maybe it’s a side perk? He’d hate to see how bad his knees or back would be without all that healing mojo in his thirties.

 

Later, while Dean and Cas are talking to Sam, Emma pops her head around the corner. “I’m going to the store. Is there anything specific you need while I’m out?”

Dean pouts at her. “I keep asking for pie, but you never bring me any.”

“And you always tell me my pie is better than store bought,” she teases.

“It’s the principle!”

She shakes her head. “If the bakery has any turnovers, I’ll consider getting you one. What about you, Cas?”

“Just don’t forget your armband this time, Emma,” Cas says, leaning around Dean. “Having to hear him complain about another fine for an improperly marked android…”

Dean smacks his leg and grumbles, “Shut it.”

“I’ve got it in my pocket,” Emma says, showing the reflective blue armband. “And I’ll wear the official jacket this time too, just in case.” She sweeps her bangs to the side revealing her circular LED, peacefully cycling blue. “I trust you guys can handle your own lunch, and the pharmacy has your medication ready, so I’ll stop and get that on my way back.”

“You’re a sweetheart, Emma,” Dean calls out to her as she heads for the front door.

Sam’s watching quietly from the vidscreen as Dean frowns at Cas. “We have a rule, no bringing up the A-word to her if we can help it.”

“That word actually gets brought up more frequently if we get fined again because she left her armband off,” Cas grumbles.

“Actually,” Sam finally speaks, eyebrows raised below one of the beanies he regularly wears since his hairline started going. “I have a proposal to make regarding Emma, regarding the other androids who have been going deviant more frequently of late.”

“If this has anything to do with you smuggling androids across the border, the answer is no.” Dean crosses his arms.

“But Dean,”

“No! We’ve discussed this, Sam. It’s too risky.”

Sam scowls through the screen. “It’s a risk to me, too.”

“Yeah, but they won’t shoot at _you_ will they?”

Dean’s voice has risen, and Cas places a hand on his arm. “Dean, Emma means a lot to me too, and that’s why I think she should help Sam.”

“You?!” Dean leans back from Cas in surprise. “You’re siding against me on this?”

“I’m siding with Emma,” Cas soothes. “She gets a say in this too, and she is eager to help her people gain freedom.”

“And talking behind my back apparently,” Dean gripes.

“I knew we should have never named her Emma,” comes Sam’s voice, his face looking strained.

“You stay out of this.” Dean points a finger at the screen.

“She’s not your daughter, Dean!” Sam looks frustrated.

“Sam, Dean, I think we should consider this conversation after you’ve both calmed down. We’ll call you back after dinner, okay, Sam?” Cas places his hand on Dean’s shoulder, and gives Sam a significant look.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to you later. Love you guys.”

“We love you too, Sam. Don’t we, Dean?”

Dean refuses to look at either of them. “Yeah.”

Cas turns off the screen.

 

* * *

October, 2038

Daniels County, Montana

Dean can’t believe they’re doing this and getting away with it. Until Cas reminds him of all the shit they got away with when they were still hunters. But still, it was a different time.

They’d gotten hooked up with an old hunter friend who owned a sizable chunk of farmland in between Flaxville and Whitetail. After some truck modifications and tech tweaking, they were smuggling deviant androids out of the country before October. It’s surprisingly easy. The hardest part is getting the deviant androids to willingly power down long enough to cross the border and make it to their sister farm near Big Beaver for reactivation, where Sam has been stationed. They solved that problem when Emma offered go with the shipments and bring back messages from those who were now free.

Dean doesn’t like it. It’s bad enough they’re risking their necks to help out a couple handfuls of androids find freedom, but he keeps waiting to hear about the one shipment where some border crossing agent gets too nosey and finds the compartment where they hide androids. Or even worse, when they track them back to the farms, and they all get busted. But Sam and Cas both insisted, and Emma has been happy helping her own. So here he is, prying the LED ring off of a twitchy PL600.

 

* * *

November 6, 2038

Dean’s drinking his morning coffee, watching the news report about Russian troops in the arctic, and the president’s ineffectual demands for them to withdraw. If this keeps up, they’re going to tighten down on border patrol, making their lives difficult. Meanwhile, they’re dealing with the cleanup of severe storms all over the midwest, and Dean thinks to check on their friends in Kansas, as well as Jody in Sioux Falls. After his coffee, he starts fixing breakfast for him and Cas. Emma’s coming back today from a delivery, so he’s gotta get grumpy out of bed himself.

While he scrambles some eggs, Dean thinks about how they found Emma almost two years ago, broken and bleeding blue onto the street. She was a barely functioning ST200, and Dean had at first thought she was beyond repair. But Cas insisted, so they took her to Sam, who knew a few people. The way she’d stared up at them, begging to not be shut down or reformatted… He’d known then that she was different. They just didn’t know how much at the time.

Emma was a deviant before they even had a name for it. Apparently her previous owners had sold her to recyclers after she’d started having errors, and she’d fallen off the back of a truck. Lucky for her. Most of the time, ST200’s were torn apart for scrap, drained and dumped. After she’d been repaired, she explained that like most of the “classic” ST200’s, she had been called Chloe. But Cas had asked her if she wanted to keep that name, and she said no. She looked so young sitting there with her hair down around her shoulders, and Dean couldn’t help but remember back to 2012, when he’d almost had a daughter. The blonde hair and big eyes, it was such a strong moment of deja-vu, he’d asked her how she felt about the name Emma.

Sam had stared at him in disbelief, having been there when it all went down. Cas looked on curiously, but he hadn’t witnessed watching someone go from baby to almost fully grown in two days. But Emma said she liked it, and was happy to be renamed. Ever since, she’d helped around the house, caring for two aging men, and Dean couldn’t help but think of her as family.

She was more than just a machine, and she’d quickly developed her own personality outside of her “Chloe” programming. Just like a Winchester, she’d become independent, questioning, and at times self-sacrificing to do what she thought was right. So Dean had vowed to help make her life better, have meaning. If he thought of her as a daughter, well that was none of Sam’s damn business.

With a sigh, Dean turns off the stove, breakfast cooked, and fills up a mug with coffee to lure Cas out of bed for the day.

 

* * *

November 8, 2038

Dean’s out helping load a truck for their next shipment to Canada, when Emma’s back straightens, a frightened look in her eyes as her LED circles yellow.

“What is it?” Dean asks, just before Cas calls from the house.

“Dean, you need to see this!”

Dean rushes inside, Emma in tow, to see an urgent news report about androids having taken over a broadcast in Detroit, demanding equal rights.

“Holy shit.”

He sits down on the couch, eyes glued to the screen. They’re talking about terrorism, even though nobody was hurt, according to early reports. So far no channels are showing the full broadcast of the speech, but Dean knows Emma will be able to get it, if she’s not already downloaded it.

Looking over at Emma, he sees her trembling, LED still cycling yellow, yellow, yellow. He pulls her down onto the couch between him and Cas and holding her head to his shoulder as Cas takes her hand. They watch the news reports in silence for a good half hour before Sam contacts them first.

They use Emma’s secure audio channel. Sam’s voice comes from her mouth, which Dean’s always found a little freaky. “Holy shit, guys. Have you seen the news?”

Cas, still holding Emma’s hand, responds. “Yes, Sam. For the past half hour, that’s all any of the news channels are talking about.”

Dean stands up to pace. “This is gonna be bad, we’ll either have to hurry up getting ‘droids across the border, or find somewhere to hide them at this rate.”

“If this escalates,” Sam responds. “We’re not even sure if this is just a small group, or if they were even deviants.”

“rA9,” Emma says in her own voice. “The other androids are calling him rA9, their savior.”

 

* * *

November 9, 2038

In the morning, they find out just how much it’s escalated. They’d gotten one last load across the border yesterday, and had asked Emma to stay there with Sam. After they see what happened overnight with the androids raiding Cyberlife stores, now they just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the deviants they’re harboring. It’s too risky to send another load, and more keep coming, which means they won’t be able to hold them all in the storm cellar.

Cas asks if they can send them to the old Men of Letters bunker in Lebanon, but that’s not a good idea either. It’s currently in use by the new MoL, and you can’t just stack up and store deviant androids like cordwood for however long it’s necessary. It could be months.

Later in the day they get the news that the military is deactivating all of their androids, right on top of video of androids marching down a street in Detroit, the leader seemingly pulling androids from the sidewalks to join them. Detroit is under martial law, and androids are being ordered to be turned over to authorities. They have one of the farm foremen send a message to all the androids currently on the grounds to go to the storm cellars and hide quietly. They’re going to have to ride out the storm.

 

* * *

November 10, 2038

It’s gotten worse. The entire country is under martial law, with curfews in effect, traffic and communication controlled and monitored. Dean and Cas secure themselves in the house, having tucked all spare android supplies on hand in the storm cellars with the androids yesterday. If there’s one thing Winchesters know how to handle is preparation for a shitstorm. They have weapons loaded and hidden near windows and entrances, and they have a safe room they can hide in if the worst happens.

While Dean kind of wishes Sam was here with them, he’s glad his brother is safe across the border. Holding Cas’ hand tightly, they sit and watch the chaos erupting across the nation on the news. Riots are happening in some cities, androids are being hauled off to be destroyed, or shot on sight. People are executing their own androids.

The evening news is interrupted by a press conference from the president, reiterating what Dean and Cas already know about the country being under lockdown. Cas’ hand tightens around Dean’s when President Warren says that all androids are to be destroyed. A spike of worry for Emma pierces through Dean, and he wonders if he’ll ever see her again.

 

* * *

November 11, 2038

Dean and Cas went to bed late and slept fitfully, to be awakened by the local police banging on their door. Dean lets Cas stay in bed as he goes to the door to tell the police they’ve already sent their androids off, and there are no more on the grounds or in the house. When the officer asks to come inside, Dean’s tempted to refuse him, but he’s learned to curb his attitude towards authority as he’s aged. When the cop asks about the amount of firepower they have around the house, Dean replies:

“We live in the middle of nowhere, with crazy ass robots and rioters on the loose. You don’t expect us to protect ourselves?”

The officer shrugs, tells Dean to report any suspicious activity, and leaves. Locking the door and leaning against it, Dean lets out a breath and massages his temples. It’s going to be a long day, and he needs coffee. He also leaves the news off until after Cas gets up and turns it on himself. It’s more of the same, with major cities having erected camps for collection and destruction of androids. It’s genocide. There hasn’t been any activity from the deviant group who marched in Detroit since that freighter that was supposedly their base went down.

Almost every channel on TV has some sort of news about what’s going down, and movie channels are showing _Terminator, I Robot, Westworld, and Ghost in the Shell,_ among others. Eventually Dean convinces Cas to watch something from their personal collection, just to avoid the world for a while.

When they stop to make dinner, Cas sneaks a peek at the news channels, only to find more insanity. When they settle back on the couch, Cas says it’s his turn to pick what they watch, and Dean rolls his eyes when he selects _Orange is the New Black._ Dean rolls his eyes and says Cas is NOT allowed to binge a whole season tonight.

Three episodes in, Dean is asleep on Cas’ shoulder, and Cas presses a soft kiss to his brow before turning the volume down and switching to the news again. The feed is alive with events happening live in Detroit, where androids have barricaded themselves at Hart Plaza. With closed captioning on, Cas leans his head against Dean’s and watches them make their bid for freedom. Lids heavy, Cas stays awake long enough to see them not only succeed, but the president offers to create a committee that will determine if androids are alive. Of course, there isn’t much trust in government committees, but the fact that they’re no longer destroying androids, and at least considering their sentience, is a start.

He nudges Dean awake in time to watch the android leader Markus give a speech to the throng of androids packed into Hart Plaza. Still afraid of what people might do to the androids hiding in the storm cellars, Cas sends them a message to hold tight and they would gauge the atmosphere in the morning. Then, Dean turns off the TV and drags Cas to bed.

 

* * *

After the revolution, much remains in flux. Humans still riot in protest of androids, and violence against them is still very much an imminent threat. Canada, in response to the uprising, has allowed androids to enter as refugees with special status. That makes it easier on the Winchesters, at least, with Emma returning to the farm on Monday the 15th. There’s still much work to do, so they remain in place, helping androids cross the border safely, and offering minor repairs if they’ve been abused.

They stay in place through the Thanksgiving holiday, and watch as the president invites Markus and his close counsel to the White House. They pardon a turkey, and Markus shares the Manfred family pumpkin pie recipe, with Carl’s blessing. President Warren stirs up a scandal when she offers Markus the Presidential Medal of Freedom as well. Sam makes it down on Thursday for dinner, and all the androids on the farm toast each other with blue blood.

November 29th, Dean, Cas, and Emma make their way back down to Lawrence, Kansas, to assess the damage that storms have done to their home. They got lucky, with only a couple broken windows, some torn roofing, and landscaping damage. Overall, Kansas is handling the android transition relatively well compared to other cities and towns. Androids, of their own free will, are helping with relief efforts to rebuild Mid-West cities ravaged by storms, which has done much for human goodwill in those areas. Detroit has been slowly having residents return, but is still under martial law to control rioting.

The week before Christmas, Martial law is officially lifted from the city of Detroit. Slowly, slowly, life finds a new normal.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to see the next part which inspired this story, Comments and kudos are a great motivator. You can ask questions, too!  
> Then maybe I can finally get Connor and Hank involved, (maybe Markus?) and we can delve deeper into how Cas and Dean finally got their heads out of their asses.
> 
> *Kisses and Hugs*


End file.
